How we use your information.

Who we are

Assessor Access runs this website and the Assessor Access panel. We are the controller of the personal information described here, which means we decide how and why it is used and we are responsible for it under the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

For anything about your information, including the rights set out below, use our contact form.

The short version

• We collect only what we need to run a panel of energy assessors and to arrange the assessments that are booked with us.
• We do not sell personal information, we do not use it for advertising, and we do not send marketing emails.
• This website has no analytics, advertising or tracking cookies. The only thing it stores on your device is what keeps you signed in.
• If an assessment is booked at your property, your details go to the one accredited assessor who is visiting and to nobody else outside our suppliers.
• You can ask to see, correct or delete your information at any time.

If you apply to join, or are a panel member

What we hold

• Your name, trading name, email address and mobile number.
• Your accreditation scheme, accreditation number and its renewal date, and the expiry date of your professional indemnity insurance.
• The postcode you work from and how far you will travel. We turn the postcode into map coordinates so that jobs can be offered by distance.
• The services you are qualified to carry out, and anything you wrote on your application.
• Once you are a member: your sign-in account, your diary and time off, the jobs you claim, are booked for and complete, the fees and extra payments recorded against those jobs, change requests you send us, and notes our office keeps about your membership.

Why, and our lawful basis

• To consider your application and to run your membership, including offering and booking work and recording what you are owed. The basis is that it is necessary for a contract with you, or to take steps you have asked for before entering one.
• To check that you are accredited and insured, against your scheme's public register where needed, and to keep office notes. The basis is our legitimate interest in only sending accredited, insured assessors into people's homes.
• To keep financial records. The basis is our legal obligation to keep accounting and tax records.

Your password is never visible to us. When an account is created you are emailed a temporary password and must replace it the first time you sign in.

If an assessment is booked at your home or property

Where your details come from

Usually from whoever booked the assessment: you, or your landlord, letting agent, estate agent, housing provider or another business acting for the property. They give us the details we need to arrange the visit.

What we hold

• Your name, the property address and postcode, and up to three phone numbers and an email address if they were supplied.
• Notes needed to get access, for example where a key is kept or when someone is in.
• Basic facts about the property: type, number of bedrooms, floor area and approximate age.
• The appointment date and time, which assessor attended, and the outcome, for example that nobody answered and the visit needs rebooking.
• After the visit: the energy rating band and score, the link to the certificate on the government register, and, if the assessor uploads them, the certificate's data file (XML) and a PDF copy of the certificate. These describe the property and its heating and insulation, and name the assessor.
• A record of the texts and emails we sent you about the appointment: when, to which numbers or address (partly hidden), and whether it was delivered to our provider.

Please do not give us health details or other sensitive information. If something about the visit needs care, a sentence such as "please ring before arriving" is enough.

Why, and our lawful basis

To arrange the appointment, to text or email you its date and time, to let the assessor find and contact you, to carry out the assessment and to email you the certificate. If you booked with us yourself the basis is our contract with you. Otherwise it is our legitimate interest, and that of the person who booked, in carrying out an assessment that has been requested for the property. We only ever contact you about the assessment itself.

Your assessor and the public register

The assessor who visits is an independent professional. They lodge the certificate with their own accreditation scheme and with the government's Energy Performance of Buildings Register, and they and their scheme are separately responsible for the information they hold to do that. Energy certificates on the government register are public and show the property address and rating. That is a legal feature of the register and not something we control. The register has its own process for opting a certificate out of public view.

If you send us a message

The contact, Equipment and New to assessing forms collect your name, email address, a phone number and company name if you give them, and your message. We use them to reply and to deal with what you asked. The basis is our legitimate interest in answering enquiries, or taking steps before a contract if you are asking about booking assessments.

If we send you reports

If you booked assessments with us, or work with us, we may email you reports of completed assessments: the property address, our reference and yours, the date, the energy rating and the certificate link. They never include the occupiers' names or contact details. If the reports are sent on a schedule, we keep your email address with that schedule until it is deleted. The basis is our legitimate interest, and yours, in keeping you up to date with the work. Ask us at any time to stop.

If you only visit the website

• No analytics and no tracking. We do not profile visitors or follow you around the web.
• Server logs. Our hosting supplier records technical details of each request, such as IP address, browser type and time, to deliver the site and keep it secure.
• Typefaces and code libraries. Pages load their typefaces from Google Fonts, and the sign-in pages load open source code from the jsDelivr network. Your browser contacts those services directly, so they see your IP address. Neither sets cookies through this site.
• Abuse prevention. When a form is sent we keep a scrambled, one-way version of your IP address for up to a day, only to count how many times a form has been sent from the same place. It cannot be turned back into the address.
• Cookies and device storage. See the cookie policy.

The basis for all of this is our legitimate interest in running a secure, working website.

Who we share information with

We never sell personal information. We share it only as follows.

• The assessor booked for a job sees that customer's name, address, contact details, access notes and property details. Assessors cannot see each other's jobs. When a job is on the open job board, panel members who work in that area can see the property address, the property details and the fee so they can decide whether to take it. They cannot see the customer's name, phone number or email address until the job is theirs.
• The customer is told the name of the assessor who is booked to visit and who lodged their certificate. The message about their appointment may also give them that assessor's phone number, so that they can ring to rearrange the visit.
• Whoever booked the assessment may be told when the visit is booked and when the certificate is ready, and may be sent a report of the completed assessments they booked (address, references, date, rating and certificate link, never the occupier's name or contact details).
• Suppliers who process information for us, under contract and only on our instructions:

• Professional advisers, insurers, regulators, courts or the police, when the law requires it or when we need to establish or defend a legal claim.
• A buyer of the business, if it is ever sold or merged, under the same protections as this notice.

Directions in the assessor app open Google Maps or Apple Maps. Those services receive the address only when an assessor chooses to open them.

Transfers outside the UK

Our database is held in the European Union, which the UK government recognises as giving an adequate level of protection. Some suppliers are based in, or use servers in, the United States and other countries. Where information leaves the UK it is protected either by the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or by the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to standard contractual clauses in our contract with that supplier. You can ask us for details.

How long we keep it

When a period ends we delete the information or remove the details that identify you. If you ask us to delete something sooner we will, unless the law requires us to keep it.

How we protect it

• Everything travels over an encrypted connection.
• Access is controlled record by record: an assessor's account can reach only their own record and the jobs in their own diary, and only our administrators can see everything.
• Passwords are stored by our sign-in supplier in a hashed form that nobody can read, including us.
• The public forms are limited and checked to keep automated abuse out.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach ever puts your rights at risk we will tell you and the Information Commissioner's Office, as the law requires.

Automated decisions

We do not make decisions about you by automated means alone. Open jobs are listed to assessors in order of distance and by the services they offer, and every decision about membership, bookings and payment is made by a person.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask us to:

• tell you what we hold about you and give you a copy (access);
• correct anything that is wrong or incomplete (rectification);
• delete your information (erasure), where we have no lawful need to keep it;
• stop or limit what we do with it (restriction), or stop using it where we rely on legitimate interests (objection);
• give you, or another organisation, the information you gave us in a reusable format (portability).

It is free, you do not need to give a reason, and we will answer within one month. We may need to confirm who you are first. Panel members can also see most of their record, and ask for changes, on their Account page. To make a request, use our contact form.

If you are unhappy

Please tell us first. We will acknowledge a data protection complaint within 30 days, look into it without delay and tell you the outcome.

You can also complain at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK's data protection regulator: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, 0303 123 1113, or Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Children

This service is for businesses and adult householders. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.

Changes to this notice

If what we do with personal information changes, this page changes first and the date at the top moves. If a change is significant and affects you as a panel member, we will email you.